


Science of Love

by pagan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, HP: EWE, Post-Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-21
Updated: 2012-04-21
Packaged: 2017-11-04 00:57:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/387893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pagan/pseuds/pagan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco realises its the little things that make up the whole.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Science of Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thesixthconclave](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesixthconclave/gifts).



> The prompt was a quote by Lao Tzu: “Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart and the senses.”
> 
> Parts of the conversation between Draco and Hermione were inspired by (taken, rather, from) the lyrics of the song "Science and Faith" by The Script. You can find the video here: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xj50s8_the-script-science-and-faith-official-video-hq_music

Draco glanced at Hermione as she meticulously added the last ingredient to the bubbling cauldron. Already, the potion was taking on the distinct mother-of-pearl sheen that marked it as Amortentia. It was the bestselling potion in their apothecary: love potions never seemed to go out of style. There was always some desperate witch looking to catch the eye of a dashing wizard, or some poor sod who wanted his undying love for another duly returned.

 

_Ah, unrequited love: always good for business._

 

“I don’t know why people keep buying this—Amortentia doesn’t equate love.” Hermione glanced at him with a raised eyebrow.

 

Draco knew this was her queue for them to start one of what he termed their many intellectually-challenging conversations.  He always looked forward to disagreeing with Hermione whenever he could in these discussions. Not only did she challenge his thoughts and opinions on a myriad of subjects, the sexual tension they generated from these heated debates were electrifying. The effect was that they would both get angry by the end of it and that always, always, led to the best kind of sex: make-up sex.

 

Eager to fire off his opening salvo, he said sententiously, “Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart and the senses.” He _tsked_ and continued in a patronising tone, “What the potion does is just that. The combination of Ashwinder eggs, the Moonstone, it replicates—

 

“By the use of external ingredients in measured quantities,” she interjected and shook her head. “You’re trying to break emotions—love—down to a science. It doesn’t work that way.”

 

He scoffed, getting into the spirit of the debate. “Are you saying that for those moments or hours after a person ingests Amortentia, they don’t believe they’re in love? Their hearts don’t pound erratically at the sight of the object of their affections? They don’t yearn to be with the ones they long for?”

 

She rolled her eyes. “I’m saying love potions create a strong and powerful _infatuation_ , Malfoy. It’s not the same as love. You can’t break love down to—to base ingredients in a potion.”

 

He sneered. “Love is an illusion of a hopeless heart, Granger.” Okay, that was lame, but the Amortentia simmering in the cauldron nearest to him was emitting a lovely smell, not unlike Granger herself—a combination of ink, parchment and that elusive scent of verbena—and it _was_ distracting.

 

“Really?” Now both her eyebrows were raised. “So you’re saying love doesn’t exist?” Her face reddened as her eyes narrowed.

 

 He opened his mouth to retort, but again the whiff of that delectable scent that was just Granger drifted over and he hesitated, his mind focussing instead on how the scent was strongest on that spot just behind her ear, and how whenever he licked or laved at it, she would shiver. “Even Muggles say that love is a science: a mixture of chemicals and sex hormones, all to do with the brain.” He nodded emphatically, recalling what he’d read in some article on the biological basis of love on Hermione’s pee-cee or notepad or whatever that thing with the imprint of a half-eaten apple on its cover was called. “And the ingredients in Amortentia can reproduce that.”

 

She looked amused at his rally. “So you think it’s all about hormones and lust. Tell me, Malfoy, can you find faith or hope down a telescope?”

 

_Huh?_

 

“No? I can tell you that you won’t find heart and soul in the stars either,” she went on. “You can break everything down to chemicals, but you can’t explain love. Can you?”

 

He scowled.

 

“Can you explain a love like ours?” she asked.

 

He opened his mouth to say something trite and perhaps quote further from those Muggle articles he’d read, but her face, somewhat amused and indulgent and yet challenging at the same time, kept him silent. For he knew then that she was right: it was more than lust and funny little hormones that directed what he felt for her. 

 

It was the little things that made up the whole: her intelligence; her warmth and compassion; how they talked about their day and how she cuddled into him every night; the way she knew how he liked his tea and vice versa; how she looked and how she felt when she took a part of him inside her; her companionship and friendship and the life they had carved out together; the life growing within her, tangible evidence of what they felt for each other.

 

No, those little things could never be replicated by a love potion.

 

 

 

 


End file.
